Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 378 pages of information about Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4.

Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 378 pages of information about Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4.
        No hair on body. 
        Delicate skin. 
        Rounded skull. 
        Small face. 
        Large orbits. 
        High and slender eyebrows. 
        Low and small lower jaw. 
        Soft transition from cheek to neck. 
        Rounded neck. 
        Slender wrist. 
        Small hand, with long index finger. 
        Rounded shoulders. 
        Straight, small clavicle. 
        Small and long thorax. 
        Slender waist. 
        Hollow sacrum. 
        Prominent and domed nates. 
        Sacral dimples. 
        Rounded and thick thighs. 
        Low and obtuse pubic arch. 
        Soft contour of knee. 
        Rounded calves. 
        Slender ankle. 
        Small toes. 
        Long second and short fifth toe. 
        Broad middle incisor teeth.

(Stratz, Die Schoenheit des Weiblichen Koerpers, fourteenth edition, 1903, p. 200.  This statement agrees at most points with my own exposition of the secondary sexual characters:  Man and Woman, fourth edition, revised and enlarged, 1904.)

Thus we find, among most of the peoples of Europe, Asia, and Africa, the chief continents of the world, that the large hips and buttocks of women are commonly regarded as an important feature of beauty.  This secondary sexual character represents the most decided structural deviation of the feminine type from the masculine, a deviation demanded by the reproductive function of women, and in the admiration it arouses sexual selection is thus working in a line with natural selection.  It cannot be said that, except in a very moderate degree, it has always been regarded as at the same time in a line with claims of purely aesthetic beauty.  The European artist frequently seeks to attenuate rather than accentuate the protuberant lines of the feminine hips, and it is noteworthy that the Japanese also regard small hips as beautiful.  Nearly everywhere else large hips and buttocks are regarded as a mark of beauty, and the average man is of this opinion even in the most aesthetic countries.  The contrast of this exuberance with the more closely knit male form, the force of association, and the unquestionable fact that such development is the condition needed for healthy motherhood, have served as a basis for an ideal of sexual attractiveness which appeals to nearly all people more strongly than a more narrowly aesthetic ideal, which must inevitably be somewhat hermaphroditic in character.

Broad hips, which involve a large pelvis, are necessarily a characteristic of the highest human races, because the races with the largest heads must be endowed also with the largest pelvis to enable their large heads to enter the world.  The white race, according to Bacarisse, has the broadest sacrum, the yellow race coming next, the black race last.  The white race is also stated to show the greatest curvature

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Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.